Aksaychin ( Chinese trad. 阿克賽欽 , Ex . 阿克赛钦 , Pinyin : Ākèsàiqīn , Uig. Ak Sai , Hindi अकसाई , Urdu اکسائی چن ) is a region located on the border of the PRC , Pakistan and India . It has an area of 42,685 km² (about 20% of the entire state of Jammu and Kashmir ) [1] . The territory is ruled by China, but disputed by India. Aksaychin is one of the two main territorial disputes between India and China, the second disputed territory - the state of Arunachal Pradesh .
Aksaychin (literally translated from the Uygur language as the “White Chin ravine”) is a vast high-mountain salt desert located at an altitude of up to 5 thousand meters. Geographically it is part of the Tibetan plateau . There are practically no local residents in the area, as well as permanent settlements. There is little rainfall because the surrounding mountains impede the movement of air masses .
History
Historically, Aksaychin was part of the Himalayan kingdom of Ladakh before its capture by Kashmir in the 19th century, then became part of British India — on March 24, 1914 in Delhi, a secret exchange of letters between Tibet and British India (before the Simla Conference ) was conducted by the MacMahon Line of Demarcation . China, which did not recognize the sovereignty of Tibet, which arose during the British-Chinese war of 1903-1904 (ended with the assault and capture of Lhasa by British troops and the flight of the Dalai Lama XIII to Mongolia) in search of military assistance from the Russian Empire and as a result of the “parade of sovereignties” that followed after the revolution of 1911, this agreement did not recognize, about which, without knowing about the secret agreement, the representative of China at the Simla Conference, Chen Yifan , July 3, 1914, declared.
One of the reasons for the Indo-Chinese war of 1962 was the fact that India discovered China’s road through disputed territories, according to the McMahon Line , which is not recognized by China. China National Highway 219 , which connects Tibet and Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region , passes through the tiny town of Tianshui in Aksaychine, which has acquired strategic importance for China. Most of the road is located above 4000 m above sea level.
Landscape Model with Google Earth
In June 2006, a satellite model of Google Earth found [2] a landscape model of the eastern part of Aksaychin and adjacent areas of Tibet at a scale of 1: 500, built 35 km south-west of Yinchuan , the capital of the Ningxia-Hui Autonomous Region . The coordinates of the model:
A visual comparison with the landscape of Aksaychin reveals a great resemblance [3] . The 900m × 700m model was surrounded by ancillary buildings, trucks and observation posts. Since landscape modeling is used for military exercises , various versions have appeared on the purpose of this object:
- training ground for unmanned aerial vehicles for testing bombing trajectories and dispersion schemes
- model for studying chemical or biological weapons dispersion patterns
- tank test site
- model for drainage modeling, built for climatological studies.
According to the local authorities, the model is a tank training ground, which was built in 1998-1999 [4] .
Notes
- ↑ Aksai Chin: China's disputed slice of Kashmir . CNN.com. The appeal date was August 6, 2008. Archived March 16, 2012.
- ↑ Google Earth Community posting , 29 June, 2006
- ↑ Google Earth Community posting , 10 April 2007
- ↑ Chinese X-file not so mysterious after all , July 23, 2006
Links
- Photos Aksaychina
- The Great China-India Game The story of the ever-ambiguous border of India and China in Aksaychine. (eng.)
- Aksai Chin: China's disputed slice of Kashmir
- Conflict in Kashmir: Selected Internet Resources, University of California, Berkeley, USA
- Photos from Google Earth (kit.)